SECRETS OF A SOUL (Germany/1926)

Sigmund Freud refused to collaborate in film production because he didn't believe "satisfactory plastic representation of our abstractions was possible". He turned down offers from Hollywood's Samuel Goldwyn and Berlin's UFA. Two of Freud's close associates, Hanns Sachs and Karl Abraham, did agree to serve as consultants of the first film about psychoanalysis: Secrets of a Soul by G. W. Pabst. The film was very well received. It was instrumental in spreading psychoanalysis throughout the world. It is, in my opinion a notch below Pabst's masterpieces like Pandora's Box because the source material has obviously dated. It is a case history, based on an actual patient, about a man who develops a knife phobia and homicidal desires as a consequence of unresolved child trauma, frustrated desire to father a child, and intense feelings of jealousy towards the handsome cousin of his wife, whom he considers a rival. Secrets of a Soul (to call it "Secrets of a Psyche" would have confused the uninitiated) is basically a mystery which illustrates the use of free association and dream interpretation to locate the source of a patient's neurosis and facilitate his personal growth. As far as psychological mysteries goes, I like Pabst's film better than Spellbound, Hitchcock's stab at making a psychoanalytic film. What makes Secrets of a Soul special is the use of photography and art direction to convey interior processes like dreams, memories and fantasies. However, the important relationship between patient and doctor in psychoanalysis cannot possibly be dramatized with the necessary nuance within the limitations of the silent film.